Cheating.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide, because it sanctions cheating and the use of dishonorable methods in obtaining wealth and power.
“And Jacob sod [boiled] pottage; and Esau came from the fields, and he was faint; and Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint.... And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die; and what profit shall this birthright do me? And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him; and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentils; and he did eat and rose up and went away” (Gen. xxv, 29–34).
This transaction, one of the basest recorded, receives the sanction of the Bible. Jacob, with God’s assistance, by using striped rods, cheated Laban out of his cattle:
“And it came to pass, whensoever the stronger cattle did conceive, that Jacob laid the rods before the eyes of the cattle in the gutters, that they might conceive among the rods.
“When the cattle were feeble, he put them not in; so the feebler were Laban’s and the stronger Jacob’s. And the man increased exceedingly, and had much cattle” (Gen. xxx, 41–43).
“If he [Laban] said thus, The speckled shall be thy wages; then all the cattle bare speckled; and if he said thus, The ringstreaked shall be thy hire; then bare all the cattle ringstreaked. Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father and given them to me” (Gen. xxxi, 8, 9).
Thus, by defrauding his uncle, his famishing brother, and his blind and aged father, this God-beloved
patriarch stands forth the prince of cheats—the patron saint of rogues.
The Israelites obtain the Egyptians’ property by false pretenses.
“And I [God] will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall come to pass that when ye go, ye shall not go empty; but every woman shall borrow of her neighbor, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver and jewels of gold, and raiment; and ye shall put them upon your sons and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil [rob] the Egyptians” (Ex. iii, 21, 22).
“And the Lord said unto Moses, ... Speak now in the ears of the people, and let every man borrow of his neighbor, and every woman of her neighbor, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold” (Ex xi, 1, 2).
“And the children of Israel did according to the word of Moses; and they borrowed of the Egyptians jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment; and the Lord gave the people favor in the sight of the Egyptians, so that they lent unto them such things as they required; and they spoiled the Egyptians” (Ex. xii, 35, 36).
Here obtaining goods under false pretenses and embezzlement are commended by God himself. It may be claimed that the Egyptians had wronged the Israelites. Suppose they had; could God secure justice for them only by treachery and fraud? Suppose your son worked for a farmer, and that farmer defrauded him of his wages; would you advise your son to borrow a horse of his employer and decamp with it in order to obtain redress, especially when you had the power to obtain redress by lawful means? Instead of encouraging these slaves in an act that would eventually lead them to become a race of thieves and robbers, an honest God would have taken their masters by the collar and said, “You have received the labor of these men and women; pay them for it!”
In the Mosaic law we find the following beautiful statute:
“Ye shall not eat of anything that dieth of itself; thou shalt give it unto the stranger that is in thy gates, that he may eat it, or thou mayest sell it unto an alien” (Deut. xiv, 21).
“Anything that dieth of itself” is diseased. Diseased flesh is poisonous. To authorize its use, even if those receiving it are not deceived, is immoral.
Out West, a family, good Christians, had a hog to die of some disease. What did they do with it? Eat it? No, their Bible told them this would be wrong. They dressed it nicely, took it into an adjoining neighborhood, and sold it to strangers. Was this right? The Bible says it was.
With the widespread influence of a book inculcating such lessons in dishonesty, what must be the inevitable result? Men distrust their fellow men; along our business thoroughfares Fraud drives with brazen front; in almost every article of merchandise we buy we find a lie enshrined; at every corner sits some Jacob slyly whittling spotted sticks to win his neighbor’s flocks.